Magi

Plot Summary: 

In a lose “retelling” of stories from the classic Arabian Knights tales the story is set in a fantasy desert land filled with many peoples and countries.  In this land magic and the fantastic are still very much alive as the world is filled with Rukah, the magical life source in every person.  Only a couple people in the world are known as Magi, those with the power to draw endlessly from the Rukah and use their powers to suppose their chosen King candidates.  A young Magi, Aladdin, has begun to discover what it means to be a Magi as he explores the world with his new friends the brave and kind Alibaba and the strong and mysterious Morgiana.

Technical:

Magi is based off a maga which started in 2009 and is currently still running with 16 volumes.

Staff~

The director Koji Masunari has little other notable credits other than the Read or Die OVA.  Which speaks well for the action sequences in Magi and the attention to detail in that respect shows.

Otherwise this series has a mac-truck metric ton of episode directors, story boarders and key animators.  Most notable is the art director Ayu Kawamoto who worked on No.6, Kodomo no Jikan as the art director.

Studio~

The animation was done by A-1 Studios which is a subsidiary of Sony Music’s Aniplex.  They’ve worked on other shows such as Black Butler, Big Windup, and Fairy Tail.

Animation~

The fight scenes are really well animated and the animation, especially in the beginning of the series is fairly good by current standards.  Not amazing, but good.  The fight scenes remain consistent throughout but other animation gets really sloppy toward toward the end.

Music~

Music is catchy, diverse, and well done.  It’s not going to win separate awards for music but it’s above average in my book for a shonen show.  The man who did the music, Shiro Sagisu, also did music for many other shows including Bleach, Evangellion – including the reboots, and His and Her Circumstances to name a few.

Review:

This review will be developing as I review later seasons.  The fact remains that the series will be more than one season and at the end of the first it has a literal “to be continued” type ending.  Since I know it will be getting more I won’t entirely fault it for this.

I’d also like to say that I haven’t read the manga, and being a good girl and doing my homework I have discovered many people lamenting about the pacing of the adaptation relative to the Manga.  I’ll touch on this more in-depth in a bit if I think not reading the manga is a pro… or con…

So, the first season…

The series starts out with a bang.  Right off the bat we’re meeting the main characters, being introduced to an engaging world, and getting involved in back-stories involving poverty, purpose in life, and slavery, to name a few.  We meet Aladdin first who you know off the bat has a greater purpose but you don’t really know why yet.  Aladdin meets Alibaba who wants to be a dungeon capturer.  Dungeons are these large tower places with treasure rooms, inside are djins who will lend their power to the capturer and massive wealth.

Within the first five episodes they capture a dungeon, seeming like the series has already completed its purpose of what it set out to do.  But one amazing thing the series has going for it is progression.  By the end of the first season capturing a dungeon doesn’t even seem like it’s that big of a deal anymore because the characters have moved so far past that.

But after these awesome first few episodes where we meet our main cast they end up splitting apart in a second arc that seems relatively slow, and comparatively pointless.  The whole time you’re wondering if the characters you thought were the important ones actually are… spoiler, they are, despite this arc.  Yes the arc ends up doing some things for character personal evolution and ends up being necessary, but the adaptation from the manga here I think is weak and lacking.  I’m sure in the manga this part is much better.  Or maybe, the anime is better because it blows through a “boring” part of the manga when they’re split… I don’t really know.

After the characters come back together, unsurprisingly, things pick up and get really interesting again.  There are two more arcs following this, the third was my favorite and felt the most developed.  The fourth was so-so.  It felt like the progress that was made in the third arc was removed as characters just moved on from their achievements rather than building upon them in some way.  Beyond that it felt like aspects of the fourth arc existed as simply a way to introduce more of the world that we won’t see till the second season.  I read the ending is actually not a “manga ending” but an anime adaptation, I can’t confirm or not, but if they did make up an ending for the show it really wasn’t much of one.

But I’m not complaining, I want more of the series. It had great action, good humor, and really good characters.  It does have flaws, obviously in the fact that I’m not able to sing a lot of praises with regards to the depth of story and at times it felt like it moved way too fast to have any more depth.  But the series is entertaining and has everything you need to be a good shonen show.  Action, characters, and battles that seem to get more and more impressive as time goes on.

I’ll be looking forward to future seasons.  But since I have to review what is out right now I’m going to be forced to give it 3.5 flying turbans out of five.  The reason why this score is low for all the good I’ve said about it is because of the ending and overall pacing that didn’t seem to allow for anything deeper.  It’s not finished and so it just can’t get an amazing score.  But on an entertainment level it falls pretty high for me.  I think if you like shonen shows and enjoy this brand of fantasy then get on the show now because it may be a long running one…

[starrater]